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Crisis In Iraq: Hundreds of Women Reportedly Captured by ISIS as Thousands Flee

The humanitarian crisis in Iraq continued to escalate over the weekend: Late Friday, the Associated Press reported that hundreds of Yazidi (sometimes spelled Yezidi) women under the age of 35 were being held in Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city. Their captors: Islamic State militants (also called ISIS or ISIL), who could potentially be planning to sell them as brides. "We think that the terrorists by now consider them slaves and they have vicious plans for them," Kamil Amin, spokesman for Iraq's Human Rights Ministry, told the AP. On Sunday, Iraq's human rights minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, told Reuters that the militants had killed "at least" 500 members of the Yazidi religious minority, allegedly burying some of them alive. (The report has yet to be confirmed.) "When these terrorist groups gain territory and are able to impose their will...it will be a disastrous change for women and girls," Hillary Rodham Clinton told Glamour in a recent interview for the September issue.

Thousands of Yazidis were rescued by Kurdish forces on August 9, after being trapped in the mountains without food or water. Many are now in refugee camps.

Vian Dakhil, who CNN reports is the only representative of the Yazidis in the Iraqi parliament, cried as she addressed lawmakers last week, saying (as translated), "Mr. Speaker, our women are being taken as slaves and sold in the slave market. Please, brothers....There is now a campaign of genocide being waged on the Yazidi constituent.... My people are being slaughtered just as all Iraqis were slaughtered. The Shiites, the Sunnis, the Christians, the Turkmens, and the Shabak were slaughtered. And today, the Yazedis are being slaughtered. Brothers, away from all political disputes, we want humanitarian solidarity. I speak here in the name of humanity. Save us! Save us!"

In a press conference on Saturday, President Obama announced that the U.S. would carry out targeted airstrikes against ISIS, several of which took place over the weekend. During the conference, Obama referenced the Yazidis, saying, "We can act, carefully and responsibly, to prevent a potential act of genocide."

As of this morning, there has been no update on the 300 women said to be captured by ISIS. The militant group has a history of using women as tools of warfare: In June, Yanar Mohammed, president of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq, told WeNews that she was specifically concerned for the safety of women in Mosul, where the Yazedi women are allegedly being held. There, she said, women were "being kidnapped from their house by the ISIS warriors and forced into what they call a jihad marriage."